What are your recent top ten things?

1) My daughter
-) Take A Look Like A Man - Boy George Biography
-) Amuse at our Hambug house
-) United Airlines' business class
-) Volvo 860 turbo station wagon
-) Spice Girls
-) Vintage guitars
-) Black Devil Daughter Pam (a movie)
-) James Hatfield's country ballads
-) Every junk food

What have you done since the 1994 Japan tour?

We toured Europe and USA with Stone Temple Pilots, I had 6 months vacation - I wanted to stay home at least a year because my baby was born and I wrote songs. Steven producedImperial Teen, Edward produced Fuzz Bubble, Brian joined an album which was made by famous drummers and I made a solo album.

Why did you make a solo album at that time?

I got that idea from the Velvet Underground box set. In my basement, I had 8 track recorder not being used for years. One day I recorded a song with it all by myself and I loved it. It is called "Follow The Leader". You can hear this song on Show World now. I kept going and recorded enough songs for one album. It was a fun project for me, now I'm waiting for the right time to release it.

How is being a father?

This is the first time touring away from my family. My daughter already talks and listen to music. Her favorite album is 5678's (Japanese band), she listen to their single "Bomb The Twist" every day. If I don't play it, she starts running all over the house shouting "Bomb the twist! Bomb the twist!" Her name, Astrid, is taken from the early Beatles' member Stewart Suttcliff's girlfriend's name.

How was the Beatles anthology series?

The second one is my favorite, it has a song I had never listened to even on bootlegs. At first, I didn't like "Free As A Bird". It sounded like Travelling Wilburys, just like Jeff Lynn's early recording. I like "Real Love" - it's Lo-Fi. "Child Nature" and "Real Love" made me a Beatles fan. It was interesting to know how John Lennon wrote songs, John used a part of his song and wrote another song. When I found out a part of "Child Nature" and a part of "Real Love" were used for "Jealous Guy", I had a strange feeling.

Did you worry about the delay of the album release?

Yes, but now I think I was lucky to get ill. We were working so hard to get the album out in time, but we had too many things to do. We thought we were never going to make it. On the day when I had to make the final decision for the art work, I got sick. And they let us have more time to get ready. You might think I had a terrible time, but I would say I had a good time.

What inspires Redd Kross the most when writing songs?

Other artists and many records. Going to see gigs, listening to old albums. In LA, I spend much time in my car. Like 3 hours a day. I play CDs in my car; as I play them really loud, I can't even hear anything outside the car. I have most of my CD collection in my car. I choose something and it inspires me. I drive home and write songs. Those songs are usually not related to what I was listening to, but they make me write songs. Music is the best motivation for me. It is more than anything else happening in my life.

Is there anything you hated but you like now? Anything you loved but now hate?

It is more like just adding things I like. When I was making this album, I was crazy about Task by Fleetwood Mac. Of course I always like them, but I never had a chance to listen to this album. It is like their experimentation. When I was on the way to the studio, I stopped by at Tower Records and read a book of Fleetwood Mac. Then I remembered that they had an album called Task. Now I'm really addicted. Where we were doing the mixing then, they happened to had the machines that Fleetwood Mac used when they were making Task. There was a vocal recording booth for Stevie Nicks. It had a tiffany lamp and fake sunlight. I felt very strange. I had the mood of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks all the time when we were mixing. Now I'm in my strange time, I listen to Bee Gees in early 60's and Lora Niro*.

I hear lyrics about betraying, anything happened to you?

The songs are not always about myself. "My Secret Life" is an interesting song. I had that idea from a movie called Grace Of My Heart by Allison Anders. It is about a tin pan ally female singer/songwriter in 60's, like Carol King. I wanted to write a song like Dusty Springfield's. It's about the secret thoughts and feelings everybody has but should not show others.

What do you think of yourself as a songwriter?

I don't feel I grew up, but when I listen to my old records, I feel I came a long way since then. It took me a long time to write the songs that I wanted to write. I always wanted to write excellent and simple pop songs, but people don't think 3 minutes rock'n'roll song is great. They don't know that it is something very difficult to write such a song. For me, to write a 10 minute complicated progressive song is the easiest thing to do.

Did you write "Get Out Of Myself" with your wife?

Yes, we wrote it quite a while ago. That song had 2 versions. One has Gere's piano solo, the other one has all the different keys and chords. My wife wrote "Head Over Heels" when she was in the Go-Go's. I always wanted to write such a great pop song. I asked her to play piano and we had that song. It came out as a very different song from "Head Over Heels" though.

Is there anything changed being a member of Redd Kross for a long time?

No, I have been the most difficult person in the band all the time. I'm easy to get pissed when everybody doesn't do what I want them to do. I can be like Hitler. Music ideas are very abstract and it's very hard to explain definitively. I expect the other members to read my mind. I really want them to understand what's in my mind. So if they can't, I get irritated. I don't like to feel that way, but I always do. I complain in the rehearsal room all the time and have to apologize after that. That's why it was so easy to make a solo album all by myself. I didn't have to explain anything. Of course to work with other people is very good for me. They have ideas which I never have by myself. I know that. I'm not good at explaining things. Because I don't know music in technique. I just can't tell what. I didn't even know the difference in sharps and flats, not long time ago. The members except me to learn some musical theory. So when I read a book about the Beatles, it said that Paul knew much about theory, but John didn't know it at all, and they always had problems understanding each other. I could tell perfectly how John felt. He said to the engineer "Make the guitar sound like an orange." He wanted to be understood by saying so. I know how it was.

You have your career in your 10's, 20's and 30's, have you ever felt like an expert besides better playing technique?

In LA scene, I sure do. Our luck was that we started in our early 10's. So however we are not any older than the others in the scene, we have longer career. And people respect us just keeping to play for a long time, that's good. We were the starters of the recent scene. We have seen so many movements but we are always apart from the mainstream, we just did what we thought natural for us. Our music is basically rock'n'roll, I think. There is always a market for rock'n'roll by manias and by the people and musicians who know what we are trying to do. Especially in Japan. Japanese fans are very well educated musically, 14 years old kids buy some strange re-released CDs and different American artists' stuff even the people in LA don't know. I, myself love to read the rock history books, to collect records and to search for my favorite artists' origin. So this is a very comfortable place for me. For example, I used to like Aerosmith and Kiss when I was a kid. When I heard they were talking about the Yardbirds, I started search for them, and I got to know Jimmy Page was playing in early Yardbirds, then I started to search Led Zeppelin. And I got to know early blues, too. If you Start with Sonic Youth and you will get to Teenage Jesus. A 14 year old kid could start with Pink Floyd and get to Velvet Underground.

You have seen LA punk/hardcore scene for a long time now but you are so different from the recent LA scene, what makes you so different?

It's very simple. The reason why we are here is that we have been honest to ourselves, positive and serious. When we started the band, LA punk scene was kind of artistic movement, just before hardcore. Every band was different and each of them had small art communities. But then hardcore came in and made it limited and exclusionist. Like you have to dress like this, you have to sound like that... At that moment, we had been playing for 1 and a half years and we were just about to discover the old music. If 14 years old kid listen to punk, he must think everything started in here. But then, I listened to old Beatles and Stones albums, and found Seeds, 13th Floor Elevators and the Stooges at the used record stores, then I found out that punk's beginning wasn't in 1977! I started to learn rock and I thought I wanted to play many kind of music. So I hated all that hardcore rules and all of the sudden we were in the different field. The other members who just couldn't understand that left the band and had a big success in hardcore punk scene. However we weren't so successful, we became a band which can do anything experimental. It was exciting.

You have a long career but you are not commercially successful...do you have any pressures?

Yes I do. Especially [since] we signed up with a major label. They loan much money to us. It takes lots of money to release a record, so they have to sell lots of records. But we don't worry much about that really. If we are not so successful on one label, we can find many other labels. We are very optimistic.

You want a hit single?

Yes!! I always write songs which can be hit songs. It would be interesting if we could have a commercial hit songs instead of cult hits. To keep ourselves fresh, we need to have new experiences. We started to go overseas to play 5 years ago. At that moment it was fresh experiences to go to new places. We went to Europe, Australia and Japan and we met different people, we saw different music scenes. So now we need something else. But a hit single is not a goal. We just want more success even if we had a hit single or not.

How do you think the young punk bands have big hit records?

They are doing just the same things that has been done years and years ago. They are okay, but I prefer punk bands that are inspired by pop music, like Supergrass.

When Thurston Moore interviewed you, you said in 70's the other high school kids were hard on punk fans like you, and now, punk is not special any more, don't you think it is strange?

Yes. Cause in 70's I was the only one who has green hair in the 3500 kids my school. At that time, nobody listened to punk or nobody understood why I had green hair. But now it is just one of the teenage kids styles. I think it is great. Well, I don't know it's so great that the parents don't blame their kids in weird clothes though. As far as I know American parents has been changed and say nothing to kids. When I was a teenager, my mother got so mad at me bringing all the used clothes to home. She still doesn't like them.

Recently, even punk music has to be pop, everybody says about the importance of their pop melody. Tell me why Redd Kross have to be pop. What is pop to you?

Punk used not to have melodies. 20 years ago, the underground scene didn't need them, but now everybody says music is melody. I think there are more people who found out that to listen to music is to listen to melody. The younger generation listen to 60's music and discovered something, you know all the 60's music is full of melodies. To find melodies is a kind of challenge for musicians. We always got them in ourselves and we are trying to get them out.

So you are saying pop tunes make great music?

Of course. I wouldn't say 'always' though. If you are talking about vocals, Sonic Youth's music is never melodious, you know. The guitar sounds and the song themselves are very melodious, but vocals are not. But I think they are great. The bands that the vocals are the main part of their music - the kind of bands I like - the melody is the most important thing.

Best Album
Rocks, because "Back In The Saddle" is a wonderful song. I think it was out in 1975 or 1976, at the time I drove across the US with my family. The van had a casette deck and Steven and I played Rocks and Horses by Patti Smith over and over. I saw their Rocks tour, too.

Best Song
"Draw The Line". The best song on the album, the best song by Aerosmith.

Memories
I saw their TV commercial film playing, "Train Kept a Rollin'". It was advertising Toys In The Attic album. Get Your Wings and Toys In The Attic were released in a same year and they came to our town to support ZZ Top. I bought a ticket and went to see ZZ Top without knowing anything about Aerosmith. They were just a supporting band then, but they were really good. They were great. They were the best new band at that time.

Influence
I see them as one of the Rolling Stones followers. I like the Stones, and Aerosmith could never beat the Stones. But I like the way Steven Tyler shouts and the sounds of guitars. They are a good live band.

Definition By You
Hard rock.

Best Album
Their debut album Cheap Trick and Heaven Tonight. A Cheap Trick album is very live and really great. It sounds like it's recorded in a garage.

Best Song
They wrote so many best songs. They are the best of these 3 bands...it's very hard to choose one. Oh "Caroline" is good. "He's A Whore" is good, too...I guess this is their best for today.

Memories
The very first time I saw them was in 1977. They were supporting Kiss. It was the concert Kiss that was being recorded for the Alive lI album. I had never seen any support band that could make the audience so excited, they even had an encore. There are no other supporting bands that have encores, you know. The very next day I bought their album and found out I knew every song. I just heard them once at the concert and I remembered them. Their songs are that catchy.

Influence
They were really good at playing 60's pop music as 70's loud rock music. They are like a punk band with the Beatles' pop sense.

Definition
Pop

Best Album
Alive! It has the best songs from their early albums and it is full of energy.

Best Song
"C'mon And Love Me". This is the very best.

Influence
The way of entertaining and their pop songs. They were always different from any other normal bands. They know the way to comunicate with the audience in huge stadiums so well.

Definition
Damn great.

What do you think about what they do recently?
I still go to see Aerosmith and they are always great. They know how to write and play strong songs and their concerts are always good. The Kiss reunion tour was like a broadway show. Good stage direction. They are always fun to see. Cheap Trick know which songs are the best and they always play what the audience want. They are still a great band. But if you ask me if I expect them more in future, I would say no, I don't know if I want to buy their new albums, either. If they are going to be good, I will buy every new album. For them, to fight with what they have done before must be a very difficult thing to do. Aerosmith create a kind of good thing lately, I find some good songs on Cheap Trick's recent albums and Kiss...hummm...maybe...I don't know.

By: Mika Akao